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Turtle
Turtle (originally called Turtle Road Kill) was a middleweight robot built by Thomas Petrucelli for Sam Steyer to compete in the 1994 US Robot Wars. It competed in the 1999 Long Beach competition as well Seasons 1.0, 4.0 and 5.0 of BattleBots. It also competed in the final competition of the US Robot Wars as Turtle Roadkiller, where it won the middleweight rumble. It was a two wheeled, green, wedged, octagonal shaped robot which had absolutely no weapons. Despite this, it had an excellent ramming ability. The robot was first painted to look like a turtle splayed across a road, with the yellow acting as road lines. In between Season 4.0 and 5.0, Team Steyer was going to retire Turtle but Jim of Team Nightmare offered to take Turtle and continue competing with it. Team Steyer agreed and Jim became Turtle's new owner. For season 5.0, it was repainted to look like a cartoon turtle, complete with shell, flippers and head. It was not invertible and had no self-righting mechanism. Despite this, Turtle did well, reaching the semifinals of Season 5.0. In 2004, Turtle was sold off to an unknown buyer, but never returned to competition. Robot History Long Beach 1999 Turtle Road Kill's first ever match in BattleBots was against Ankle Biter, but it lost by KO. It then fell into the loser's bracket, where it received a first-round bye and then fought Scorpion "Beta 3" and knocked it out. Turtle Road Kill's next battle was a rematch against Ankle Biter, but it won this time on a crowd's vote. Turtle Road Kill fought Carnivore next, and it won by another knockout. Junior was Turtle Road Kill's next opponent, but despite being inverted after driving over the killsaws, Turtle Road Kill managed to win the battle. In the semifinals, Turtle Road Kill met Deadblow, and despite being pounded repeatedly by Deadblow's hammer, Turtle Road Kill won on a crowd's vote. For a place against Son of Smashy in the finals, Turtle Road Kill had to fight Knee-Breaker, but it was knocked out and lost the battle. This gave Turtle Road Kill third place in the middleweight division. For unknown reasons, Turtle Road Kill didn't participate the megabot rumble at the end of the tournament. Season 1.0 Sam Steyer then entered Turtle into Season 1.0 of BattleBots. It received a bye in the round of 16, thus giving him a free pass to the quarterfinals. However, luck was not on his side as his first true fight with Turtle Road Kill was against the later 3-time middleweight champion, Hazard. Turtle Road Kill started the fight by running away from Hazard's deadly helicopter blade, until it eventually ran straight at Hazard, which tossed Turtle Road Kill into the air. However, the sheer force of the hit broke Hazard's weapon motor, and the fight was quickly turned into a pushing and shoving match. Hazard's wedge prevented Turtle Road Kill from pushing him around, but Turtle Road Kill managed to push Tony Buchignani's disabled spin bot across the killsaws in a potentially match deciding move. Hazard retaliated by pushing Turtle Road Kill onto the entrance ramp and the robot ended up stuck in such a way that it could not move, but the time ran out before it could be counted out. Hazard won on a unanimous 9-0 judge's decision and Turtle Road Kill was eliminated from the tournament again. Turtle Road Kill wasn't finished, however, as it was repaired in time for the middleweight royal rumble at the end of the tournament. In the beginning, Turtle Road Kill went straight at Pegleg and pushed it against the spike strip. After this, Turtle Road Kill bumps into the rear of Pressure Drop and it pushed Alien Gladiator in the middle of the BattleBox. Turtle Road Kill went straight at the front of Spin Orbiting Force and it was now moving around the BattleBox. Shortly after, Turtle Road Kill stopped moving and it was pushed on the red square. Ankle Biter went straight at the immobile Turtle Road Kill and flips itself onto its rear end. The time ran out shortly after and Hazard was declared the winner of the middleweight rumble. Season 4.0 Sam Steyer was persuaded back into the BattleBox for Season 4.0, narrowly winning on a close 23-22 judge's decision against Buddy Lee Don't Play In The Street in a close ramming bout in which Turtle's design kept Buddy Lee from pushing it around. Disaster struck the Turtle however, as its driver Sam Steyer was forced to abandon the robot due to family business. Turtle Road Kill was taken in by its builder Thomas Petruccelli but was unable to compete with it due to the one robot per weight class rule, and Petruccelli had already entered Bad Attitude for the middleweight weight class. After some talking, Jim Smentowski of Team Nightmare offered to take the Turtle in and contacted BattleBots staff about the change. With just a few minutes left before Turtle Road Kill's second fight, Turtle Road Kill was under Smentowski's ownership, but he was unable to practice driving the robot due to the short amount of time left. Jim Smentowski's first ever drive, let alone fight with Turtle Road Kill was against Luke Yoder's Velocity in the next preliminary round. The fight was a quick one however, over in just 53 seconds as somehow, Jim had managed to slam into Velocity and rammed the bot into the spike strip. Once they came apart, Velocity had stopped moving and was therefore knocked out. Turtle Road Kill's next fight was against IceCube in the final preliminary round. The fight started with both bots rushing to the center of the BattleBox. Turtle and IceCube slammed together in a tremendous crash, sending IceCube reeling. IceCube recovered and came charging back, missing Turtle. The two middleweights charged and slammed into each other a few more times, then on one particular hit, IceCube spun around and landed face down on the plow. Helpless, IceCube had no way to recover from that position, so Jim immediately charged Turtle into it and knocked it back down and into the game. Several more shoves and charges later, IceCube once again landed on its plow. Turtle Road Kill was charged into Ice Cube again to knock it over as the time on the clock ran out. Turtle Road Kill won on a 32-13 judge's decision. This win put Turtle Road Kill to the TV rounds, where it faced Space Monkey. However, Space Monkey's team was having problems with their robot's receiver, and being the sportsman he is, Jim agreed with the team to postpone the match. Once they eventually started the match, it was fairly uneventful with both robots pushing each other across the BattleBox several times. Luckily for Turtle Road Kill though, Space Monkey was beginning to have radio problems again, and Turtle Road Kill took advantage by ramming them into the spike strip to claim an easy 1-minute 32-second KO. This level of success managed to finally beam Turtle Road Kill into the round of 16, where it faced the Season 2.0 runner-up El Diablo. The fight began fairly well for Turtle Road Kill, but a devastating blow from the killsaws rendered one half of Turtle Road Kill useless. El Diablo then pushed Turtle Road Kill into the pulverizer, where it sustained numerous blows. El Diablo won on a 31-14 judge's decision and Turtle Road Kill was eliminated from the tournament again. Turtle Road Kill wasn't finished, however, as it participated the middleweight royal rumble at the end of the tournament. In the beginning, Turtle Road Kill went straight at Alabama Slammer and pushed it against the spike strip. Turtle Road Kill nearly collided with Summoner and bumps into the rear of Bad Attitude. After this, Turtle Road Kill started pushing the left side of Huggy Bear for a brief moment and it pushed an immobile 2925 Jack Rabbit into the right side of Huggy Bear. After being bumped around by the likes of T-Minus and T-Wrex, Turtle Road Kill stopped moving and it was being pushed by Psychotron toward the end of the rumble. In the end, Bad Attitude was declared the winner of the middleweight royal rumble and Turtle Road Kill lost overall. Season 5.0 Jim Smentowski purchased Turtle in between the previous season and Season 5.0, becoming the new owner. Turtle was completely gutted for season 5.0 and replaced the entire electronics system. The drive-train received some minor upgrades, with the armor being considerably thicker to prevent future killsaw damage. Despite all the weight adding, Turtle ended up 3 pounds lighter than its Season 4.0 version at just 87 lbs. Turtle's first Season 5.0 battle was against Heavy Metal Noise in the round of 32. In this battle, Turtle attempted to move around Heavy Metal Noise's spinning discs, but it was unable to do so as it took some hits from Heavy Metal Noise's spinning discs. However, Turtle was not taking a lot of damage from these hits, so it began to fearlessly charge Heavy Metal Noise, ramming it as fast and as hard as possible until the match ended. Turtle won on a 27-18 judge's decision and advanced to the round of 16, where it faced Little Drummer Boy. Turtle was extremely aggressive in this battle, ramming Little Drummer Boy as much as possible, not caring where it rammed. However, Little Drummer Boy also managed to hit Turtle hard with its drum, and at one point Turtle was high-centered in the BattleBox. However, Little Drummer Boy freed Turtle to continue the fight. Despite this, Turtle managed to win on a close 25-20 judge's decision and advanced to the middleweight quarterfinals, where it faced John McKenzie's Ankle Biter in a rematch from 1999. Ankle Biter chewed up Turtle during the first half of the match, but it was Turtle that had the last laugh. During the 2nd minute of the fight, the robots had moved dangerously close to the killsaws, and with one skilled push, rammed Ankle Biter onto them and sent them flying into the air and Ankle Biter ended up landing upside down. Lacking a srimech, the only thing Ankle Biter could do was chew up the BattleBox floor and come to a halt at the edge. Ankle Biter was counted out and Turtle won the match by KO at 2:38, getting revenge for Long Beach 1999. Unfortunately, Turtle was severely damaged during its previous fights, and was not repaired sufficiently before going up against S.O.B. It turned out that Turtle's shell was bent so much it was scraping the floor and the robot was barely able to move. S.O.B scored numerous points with its awe-inspiring circular saw before winning with a 31-14 judge's decision. This meant that Turtle was eliminated from the tournament once again. Turtle couldn't participate the middleweight royal rumble at the end of the tournament because the rest of the rumbles were canceled due to an accident with Nightmare during the heavyweight consolation rumble. Wins/Losses * Wins: 12 * Losses: 5 Mark Beiro Introductions "Its a robot jock, who loves to shell shock. He's a snapper and a yapper, so turn in your Clapper for TURTLE ROAD KILL!" "He takes a lick-in but keeps on tick-in, but for his opponent, time comes to a screeching halt. Introducing TURTLE ROAD KILL!" Category:Middleweight Robots Category:BattleBots Competitors Category:Robots that fought on television Category:Middleweight Semifinalists Category:Weaponless Robots Category:Robots with more Wins than Losses Category:Royal Rumble Participants Category:US Robot Wars competitors Category:Animal Based Robots Category:Robots from California